Summary

Derived from the content of the respected McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, Sixth Edition, each title provides thousands of definitions of words and phrases encountered in a specific discipline. All include:

* Pronunciation guide for every term * Acronyms, cross-references, and abbreviations * Appendices with conversion tables; listings of scientific, technical, and mathematical notation; tables of relevant data; and more * A convenient, quick-find format

Author Notes

Compiled by The Editorial Staff of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology (New York City), one of the most skilled, experienced, and innovative teams in the field of scientific publishing.

Choice Review

McGraw-Hill derives these inexpensive subject-specific dictionaries from its Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms (6th ed., CH, Mar'03), covering 110,000 terms. Libraries could not go wrong purchasing this recognized standard reference--either the parent or its offspring. Choosing which to purchase will probably present the greater challenge. Students may be more likely to favor these more focused titles, whereas librarians may be more enthralled with the larger, more encompassing mother work. Cases in point: in the parent, one observes the wide-ranging impact of Carl Friedrich Gauss, finding 44 eponymous "Gaussian" terms used in various fields from statistics to electromagnetism. Far fewer are found in each of the offspring. Where but in the parent work does one discover that "cricket" is both an orthopteran insect and a device used to divert water at the intersection of roof and chimney, and that "gut" is a term used in geology as well as anatomy? The offspring reproduce the definitions of terms exactly as they appear in the mother work, with pronunciation but without illustrations. The appropriate appendixes are retained in the smaller volumes, but biographical entries are dropped. McGraw-Hill has competition, notably from Oxford and Facts on File, which also publish inexpensive subject-specific science dictionaries. Oxford and Facts on File include illustrations but lack pronunciations. McGraw-Hill tends to include more appendixes, such as geological time scales and electronic symbols, Oxford includes more biographical information, and Facts on File targets its dictionaries to secondary schools, usually covering fewer terms at greater length than McGraw-Hill. A notable exception is McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of Astronomy. Although priced the same as the others, this is the briefest of the McGraw-Hill series, containing 2,800 entries in 180 pages. For the same price, The Facts on File Dictionary of Astronomy, ed. by Valerie Illingworth and John Clark (4th ed., 2000), contains 3,700 terms in over 500 pages, and Oxford's A Dictionary of Astronomy, ed. by Ian Ridpath (rev. ed., 2003), 4,000 entries in over 500 pages at an even lower price. With the exception of astronomy, libraries will be well served by the McGraw-Hill titles. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Public and undergraduate libraries. T. R. Faust Burlington College